Our Story

“That was the best day of my life!”

This very positive comment was received when one of the junior classrooms came for a nature walk in the woodlands on our family farm.
A few years before this, we had made the decision to plant 36,000 native Irish trees on 5.5 hectares of the family farm to complement the old woodland where we played as kids. It was the first site in Ireland to be included as a pilot site in the Native Woodland Scheme. The inspiration was a documentary series on RTÉ (Irish Television) presented by architect Duncan Stewart in the late 90s called “Wood from the Trees.” The Native Woodland Scheme was different from other forestry programs in that conservation and biodiversity were prioritized, and wood production was encouraged. It promoted a close-to-nature silviculture system of management. Over the past 25 years, we have discovered that native Irish woodlands are good for biodiversity, good for the climate, good for flora, good for fauna, but most especially:

“Woodlands are good for people.”

We began researching ways in which the woodlands could help reconnect people with nature. We discovered the concept of “Forest Schools,” which had become popular in Scandinavia, and we participated in the first ‘Forest School’ practitioner’s course in Ireland. We traveled to Sweden to explore how schools were incorporating outdoor learning across all aspects of the school curriculum. We started running ‘Nature Days’ for the local primary school and began reaching out to other schools across the West of Ireland through the Heritage in Schools Scheme, encouraging them to incorporate ‘outdoor spaces’ into the school curriculum. Outdoor spaces such as playgrounds are important to give children a break from classroom learning, for physical activity, play, sport, and fostering social skills. While outdoor spaces can be effective as outdoor classrooms, after many years of research, we have discovered that:

“Nature is the best classroom.”

The natural world is all around us, and yet it has become more and more inaccessible to children. Writer Richard Louv, who coined the phrase “Nature-Deficit Disorder,” suggests that “reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival.” By reconnecting schoolchildren to the natural world, we are reconnecting them to their local community. By creating ‘Nature Schools’ in local communities across Ireland, we can reconnect over half a million children to nature. Nature Schools are locally owned and managed nature spaces that connect the local primary school and community with the natural world.”